


Never Be Lonely

by cjmarlowe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Masturbation, Object Penetration, Other, Recovery, kink bingo, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:38:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are very few people in this world that Clint Barton trusts, and he's not even sure he's one of them anymore. Hell, he's never been orthodox before, so why even worry that he's not going for so-called normal ways of reconnecting with himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Be Lonely

There are very few people in this world that Clint Barton trusts, and he's not even sure he's one of them anymore. There are, both subjectively and objectively, a lot of bad things that have happened to him in his life, and it's not like he's squeamish about naming them. He knows for a fact they've given him some deeply-rooted issues that he's probably never going to entirely dig out, but nobody becomes a hero because they have a great family life and a well-balanced psyche.

But none of that holds a candle to experiencing some freakshow taking over his mind.

Once he gets the hell knocked out of him by Natasha—which is about the most literally he's ever used that phrase—he just goes on autopilot until the mission is complete, because that's how well he's been trained and how much he trusts Natasha. It's only once it's over he even begins to go pick up the pieces to try to put himself back together, and the only glue that's going to do that is remembering who he _is_ , not the muscle memory that keeps his aim true but the heart that makes him try. The _why_ , not the how.

He _should_ be on leave, that would be the reasonable thing to do for a whole bucket of reasons, but once they clear him S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps working him till he finally takes a fall—physical, that is, not some kind of inevitable mental breakdown—that lays him up long-term.

The hospital doesn't make things any easier. It's like some kind of surreal, alien pod holding him prisoner till he's back on his feet. It's only when he gets himself back home—back to an apartment that's his, anyway—that he even lets himself get lost in his head. (Letting himself get lost in his head in the hospital would probably have just sicced a different kind of doctor on him, and he's pretty sure they snuck a couple in there anyway because, like he said, no one with a completely healthy mind does that kind of thing to himself, especially not more than once.)

"Ceiling's been leaking again," he mutters, looking up at fresh stain over his window. It's that kind of a place. But what does he care, it's not raining right now and there are worse things to come home to after a long time away. His place is doing all right. He's got people looking after him, and not just men in black who swoop in to clean up his messes. He's got _people_. Normal folks call them friends. Maybe one day soon he'll feel like calling them friends too.

There's a painting on the wall by the door, neo-classical garbage, and he can't remember why it's hanging there. And it bugs the shit out of him that he can't remember, even though he doesn't remember where he got the pot on the stove, either, or the cushion on the couch, because they don't matter. 

"Did I like this?" he says, holding the frame between his hands. _Or was it a gift? Or did some neighborhood kid paint it in art class and give it to me?_

He lifts the painting. It's covering a hole in the wall.

He remembers now, picking it up at a thrift shop because it was the right size and relatively inoffensive. He figured he could keep the frame, which is nice enough, and find something else to put in it, but he never bothered. Maybe he can ask Cap to make him something now, or would that be weird?

The memories are all _there_ , it's not that Loki took them away from him. When Loki was controlling him, he used Clint's memories against him. Maybe Clint's hiding his memories from _himself_ now, and isn't that a kick in the pants. Maybe he should've let the hospital get him that shrink after all.

There's something intimate about touching his own things, that he thinks people who live with their things full time take for granted. Absence made the heart grow fonder, all right, and that doesn't just apply to other people. Actually, it mostly didn't apply to other people in Clint's case. 

They didn't let him keep his bow in the hospital. (For a certain value of "let him" anyway; of course Natasha smuggled it in whenever he wanted her to, which was pretty much every day she was around, but it wasn't the same as always having it at hand. There was always a sense of absence.) Now, back home, if he's not touching it he has a sense of where it is at all times. Mostly he's touching it, though. He'll leave it on the countertop in the kitchen while he plugs in the coffeemaker, and before he knows it he's slinging it on his back again, where it belongs.

What he's really been looking forward to, though, is his bed. He thought he would have to make it, air out some sheets and hope that he'd done laundry at some point before he went away, but apparently he's been visited by little elves. He hopes they were named Natasha. If it was someone else, he doesn't want to think about them knowing where he lives when he's not at the tower. Not yet, anyway. Even if it was Natasha, it's a little weird, but he'll take weird if it means a freshly made bed just waiting for him.

He flops down on it, bounces a couple of times, listens to the springs that have been threatening to poke through the mattress for months, and sighs the most contented sigh he's ever uttered. He doesn't think anything's ever felt better than this.

Well, okay, there are probably a lot of things, but right now he can't think of any of them. The only things that would make this better are an orgasm and a nap, and hey, he can totally do both.

If he had a shrink, which he doesn't, but if he did, his shrink would probably tell him that he's deflecting or distracting himself or something. Avoidance, that's the word for it. That he's avoiding the very real shit that he needs to deal with, because sex is the great avoider. But the shrink would be wrong, because all Clint can think about as he starts pushing his clothes out of the way is how he is not just alone inside his apartment but alone inside his head, and what does that mean now?

He's lucky it's been long enough that he could get hard just thinking the word 'boobs' right now, because that's some pretty heavy shit. He's probably going to be questioning everything he does and _thinks_ for a long time. But on the other hand, he knows what it feels like now, that insidious whisper in his head. And he'd know if he felt it again, even if he couldn't do anything about it.

It's actually that feeling of helplessness that gets him naked. (Seriously, a shrink would have a _field day_ with him. He probably doesn't have one only because S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't willing to foot the bill. His issues cost more than the helicarrier.)

So, naked and hard on his dodgy but at least clean bed, thinking about the meaning of existence. He's had worse days.

He's thinking about his bow, actually. Boobs, a little, because they're pretty easy to conjure, and his bow. Because when he's thinking about this identity, there's nothing that defines him more. It doesn't turn him on, exactly, because that would be really distracting in the middle of saving New York (among other things), but it makes him feel more like him, and when he feels more like him, he's more confident, and when he feels more confident, there are more boobs.

He rubs himself pretty hard, rough with his body because he can be, and there's nothing really _tender_ about it, but he'll save the tenderness for someone else and use the rough intimacy on himself because when he's alone he can do _exactly what he wants_. He doesn't have to answer to anybody about this, and no one is telling him what to do.

Boobs and bow, bow and boobs.

He's sort of aching for it now, something more than this, something to ground him in his life again and not just a quick jerk on top of the covers to christen his rearrival in his home or something. His bow is right next to him because _of course it is_ , collapsed into its resting state but still at the ready.

_Just the tip_ , he thinks. _Just the tip. It won't be weird. People have done way weirder shit than this. This wouldn't even make the list. People in this building are probably doing weirder shit than this in bed right now._ It would probably be less convincing in the light of day, but here in the dark and in the privacy of his bedroom with its thick blinds (if thin walls), he can do whatever the fuck he wants and be whatever the fuck he wants and right now what he wants is to get off in the most intimately _him_ way that he can think of.

But not without a condom, not for his sake but because he respects the bow too much and some things are _really hard to clean_. Alien guts he's willing to put in the effort for. His own bodily products are much more preventable. He doesn't think about the fact that the optimistic box of condoms in the table by the bed is still full.

He'd feel a little crazier if it was the first time he'd done this, but it's not. Not that he goes around talking about it, but yeah. Sometimes you make do with what you've got, and sometimes it's more than making do.

He's got a hand on his cock as he does it, and it goes in easy and smooth. The gasp comes up on him by surprise, a stealth attack of delayed pleasure, then he's off and running.

He's actually mostly straight, so it's not like he's doing this as a substitute for something else, wishing for some big thick cock or something. This is about as big and thick as he likes it, which is not very, and it goes only just deeply enough to set things off inside him. (Things he discovered thanks to a bartender named Naomi with an unexpected collection of toys and a willingness to try them all out with him.) It's coincidence that the bow has exactly the right curve. It's not his design. It's not that weird.

_Yeah, keeping telling yourself that._ But it feels good and he doesn't care. If there is one true love in his life and one thing he can trust completely, it's this. And so fucking what if it's an inanimate object, Clint can love whatever the fuck he likes.

There's a water stain above this window too, and it's funny the things you notice as he climb the road to orgasm. Water stains, a tear in the blinds, and a faint crack in the wall. Clint keeps his eyes open. He always keeps his eyes open. Even when he's got one hand jammed between his legs and the other stroking his cock (and wishing for a third because there are other parts of his body that could use some attention), he doesn't miss anything.

It feels like it's maybe even more acute than before.

But now is not the time to examine that. Now is the time to clench his ass around his bow and _connect_ to it in a way that he's not even going to try to explain to anybody, ever, and pump his cock till he's coming all over himself, and everything. Seriously, everything, it's a mess.

He cleans the bow before himself, and actually leaves it across his legs afterwards because he doesn't want to lose the connection entirely. He knows that's weird. He tells himself it's because he lives in a totally sketch neighbourhood and could be called on to shoot someone with an arrow at any time. It's kind of true. But it's also weird that he makes up that excuse in his head when _nobody is ever going to ask_.

The tissues by the bed are a lot emptier than the condom box, but they get the job done, and he leaves them in a wad on the bedside table. (Not on the covers, not with them miraculously still smelling more like fabric softener than sweat and musk, even now.)

It's not like Clint thinks getting off is going to solve his problems. Historically, it's caused more problems that it's solved. But it might be the first thing that has been _absolutely, entirely his_ in a long time, his pleasures, his decisions, his own head. It probably figures this is what he decided to do with it, but what the fuck ever. If he wants to feel like himself again, then _what he wants_ is way more important than what anyone else wants for him. He _trusts_ that this was all his.

That's sort of the point.

He's still never going to be accused of being a well-balanced individual, and he's almost certainly still avoiding the hell out of what happened to him, the things he did against his will. But he's also finally reclaiming himself, and that's not nothing.

And if he chooses not to remember the times he's done something like this before, well, that's an issue for another day. Right now, he's got the promise of a nap to fulfill.

**Author's Note:**

> Also fills the avengerskink meme prompt:
> 
> Clint, Beautiful Bow, Masturbation, Object penetration  
> Clint loves his bow. He really loves his bow. So much that sometimes he just can't help himself, he needs to feel it inside him.


End file.
